With Apologies To Kelsey

I love working new faces into the strip, and I think it keeps things fresh to have these new characters around.

I realized last week that I just suddenly dropped a character into the mix without putting much history behind him. I was all "Okay folks, here's Julian, just pretend he's been here since forever."

I didn't want to make that mistake again, so Kelsey's absence from the story thus far has been explained away because I'm just that dim.

***

And you know, I do have a long history with forgetting faces and names.

in fact, let me lay a story on you...

Clad in a dirty yellow tee, some matching musty wristbands, a pair of garden variety blue jeans, and my grubby green sneakers, I once waltzed into a wedding party.

The room was jammed full of dapper gents and classy ladies, all tarted up in their tuxedos and frilly dresses respectively. Suddenly, the cat drags my loud butt onto the scene. Naturally unashamed and in fact unaware of my faux pas, I strutted my stuff around the place, hooting excitedly, and it wasn't long before I encountered a friendly seeming lady.

She said something along the lines of

"Marcus! HI!"

To which I responded by thrusting out my hand, in handshake position, as is my default behavior for encountering seemingly new people.

My hand hovered for only a moment before it was grasped in appropriate greeting fashion by the lady's. It was at about this point in time that I realized that the mystery woman had greeted me by name, implying my reputation had preceded me.